Monday Mumblings - Thomas Milligan (1832 - 1901)

Thomas Milligan (1st generation)

(15 Apr 1832 - 16 Jul 1901)

Thomas and Margaret (Morrow) Milligan with brother
Photo from Jonathan & Adrienne Milligan's web page: http://home.comcast.net/~milligram/index.htm

 

The following is comes directly from Rev. Herbert F. Milligan’s 1960 issue of "Mumblings".  Thomas is my Great Great Great Grandfather.  The red text enclosed in brackets was not in "Mumblings" but is supplemental information I found on the web.

“My Grandfather, Thomas Milligan (no middle name) arrived at Boston from a Northern Ireland County (I believe it was Antrim), in 1856, early enough for my father, Thomas, to be born in Boston, April 20, 1856.  Grandfather was accompanied by his wife, Margaret Morrow Milligan, his brother James who settled in Cambridge, and a sister (I think Emma).

“Grandfather was a large man and religious.  A “shouting Methodist” who loved American Camp meetings at which he often shouted “Praise the Lord.”  He started to invest in real estate and before long acquired a vast territory surrounding what is now Dewey Square and Atlantic Avenue.  The area now occupied by the South Terminal Railroad Station and yards, he eventually sold to the New York and New England R. R. for $75,000.00.  Shortly afterward he sold much of his Atlantic Avenue holdings to others for $25,000.00, retaining a lot, with a hardware store (Milligan’s Hardware Co.) [669 Atlantic Avenue and 8 Devonshire St., Boston, MA – The Boston Register and Business Directory, 1918, page 643] which continued in business under the same name till purchased to make room for the present Essex Hotel [669 Atlantic Avenue and 8 Devonshire St., Boston, MA – The Boston Register and Business Directory, 1918, page 643, built 1899].  Later, most of the family moved to North Woodstock, Conn. On a large acreage about two miles south of Southbridge, Mass., where he erected a set of large buildings, cleared the land of rocks, planted 5,000 apple trees, built a pond and stocked it with fish, erecting an oval island in the center of the pond, and a causeway leading to it where he planted a Maple tree and planned to enjoy his later life sitting under the tree and handling a fish pole and line.  I have enjoyed many an hour in that pleasure.  As a boy I visited that spot many times during summer vacations until I was twelve years of age.

“My father’s mother, Grandfather’s first wife, was a beautiful woman with at least eight children.  He bought property in Woodstock, Conn. Village and erected a large residence on the northeast corner of the crossroads and on the Quinebaug Road a large number of carriage factory buildings and a long general store.  When I vacationed there, all of the children by the fist wife had passed away, with the one exception of my father.  A second wife also had a numerous family of at least eight sons and one daughter, Emma.  I remember a few of my step uncles, Henry; later a butcher in New Britain, Conn.; Wesley, later a milkman in South Boston; Osias, postmaster Woodstock; Alfred; Aaron; Emma; I forget two others.  A third wife bore a son, Everett.  They lost most of their family business in a panic with losses to farmers in Kansas.  The family lot is in Mt. Hope Cemetery, Roxbury, Boston, in front of the large G.A.R. lot on the main avenue.  My father and mother are also there with my brother Thomas.

“I must not allow this to go to the printer without adding an item or two in regard to the fine Christian character of my Grandfather.  (He never used tobacco or liquors.)  I have seen it, and remember that at the regular meals at the large home on the corner Grandfather would stand up at the head of a long table in a large room, with a score of hired men, together with the large family and bowing their heads, he returned thanks to Almighty God, the giver of all good.  And nobody ate before grace was said.

“My Father often told me of gramp’s religious nature and sincerity in matters of the Spirit.  Gramp always attended prayer meeting as well as Camp meetings and special services at Quinebaug, Webster, Putnam, Douglas and his home church at East Woodstock.  Scores of times I was one of the passengers in one of the Democrat wagons or concords to the church services.  He was for HIS GODD SINGING and most every prayer meeting would start the hymn, “A Charge to keep I Have.”

“A charge to keep I have

A God to glorify,

A never-dying soul to save

And fit it for the sky.

“To serve the present age,

My calling to fulfill,

And may it all my powers engage

To do my Master’s will.”